Insulation

We've been working on adding the insulation to the walls of the cabin.  Rockwool insulation was pretty easy to work with overall.  The electrical boxes have now been installed and the interior electrical wiring is coming along as well.

before

 Rockwool

installing the insulation, adding outlet boxes, and electrical wiring

view from the front of the cabin

another front view (tractor parts will be moved)

cute Thirty-One Gifts Large Utility Tote- perfect for taking things to the cabin!

https://www.mythirtyone.com/us/en/392407/product/9463/large-utility-tote-barnyard-buddy

Thirty-one Gifts Insulated lunch box!

https://www.mythirtyone.com/us/en/392407/product/9426?defaultSku=9426AG580000

Four New Things!

Things have been moving right along on Little Frog Ranch over the past few months!  Four big things have happened!!

1.  We have water!  We had a well dug, and now we're building a 5 foot well house to keep it secure.

It is a work in progress. This will have a roof and will be completely enclosed with a door for access.  

2.  We have a right fence!  A new neighbor moved into the lot on our right and he installed the much needed fence so he could have cows soon.  We are thankful for the new fence!  One less thing on our to-do list!  And now we can look at getting animals soon too- maybe cows, maybe goats, not sure yet though...


3.  We have a tractor!!!  This was a great deal and works great too!

4.  We have a cabin!!!! (well, actually a shell)  So there is a lot of work to do to make this livable, but things are already underway!

There is a lot of beauty on Little Frog Ranch!  I was amazed at the flowers I saw on the last visit: bluebonnets, black-eyed susans, fluffy purple things, plenty of wildflowers, and of course, the cacti, which have yellow flowers blooming!  We call this big one near the cabin "Cat's Cactus", after a friend who claimed it.

DIRT

Little Frog Ranch is still coming along!  Chris took a break from the never-ending fence project to extend the driveway to the back of the property.  The front will be for the animals, but the back will be our home.  There is already a fence separating the two areas. 

This land originally had a railroad line running through it.  While the railroad is long gone, one previous owner decided to use that space to install crawfish ponds, now dried up.  We have decided to keep 2 of those ponds/empty ditches for future use, maybe even for Koi fish, who knows!  But in order to get to the back of the property easily from the entrance, we needed to fill in the last old crawfish pond and extend the driveway.  (picture cropped to show crawfish ponds)

The skidsteer was great to move the dirt to fill in the last crawfish pond/ditch.  We are having gravel delivered next week and this area will be evened out and a layer of gravel installed.  

 Chris enjoyed playing with the skidsteer again and had fun getting rid of a dead tree that was in the way too.

Next up we're planning for the cabin! The pieces of wood on the ground are marking the area, approx 12x32, tucked in the back right corner of the property behind the pond area, but far enough away to not have to worry about any flooding.  

 This is my favorite part of Little Frog Ranch.  It really is such a peaceful place.  The frogs are still hibernating, but we'll hear them again in spring.  I would love to install a deck so we can sit and enjoy the beauty and peace.

MOVING ALONG

Things slowed down at Little Frog Ranch for awhile.  Summer was too hot to work outside, then came a crazy amount of rain making it too muddy to work too!  But things are finally moving again!

The barbed wire fencing project has taken much longer than we had expected, but with some new tools in place it is going much better now!  Chris is just about finished with closing up the entrance, and then he will finish up the left side and move to the right side.  Thankfully the back and front were already fenced!

Barbed wire is not easy to work with!

 Front entrance 

TXDOT told us where the entrance had to go since we are on a 2 lane highway.  

Once the house is built we'll change the gate to an automatic one, but this works great for now!

We have been debating on whether to remodel 1/2 of the shipping container into a small cabin (8x20), or buy a portable building and turn it into a cabin (14x30).  Right now we're leaning toward remodeling 1/2 of the shipping container because of low initial cost and proximity to the electricity.  In the long run a bigger cabin would be much more usable and would be in a better location with a view of the pond.  But we still need to think about this more. 

This was an awesome surprise!  Our back neighbor has cows!  This will be part of our view from our back porch and we are excited!  We plan to have our own cows in the front pasture eventually (once the fencing is complete), but this was neat to see!

Fencing and Mowing

Not much happening on Little Frog Ranch lately, except fencing and mowing!  The left side barbed wire fence we've been working on for awhile now has been a bit complicated, but things are finally moving in the right direction, again!

 Our first stop in town is often the Jack County Building Center.  On this day, we picked up more fencing supplies and then headed to Little Frog Ranch.

It was a beautiful day!

I spent some time mowing the vehicle paths down using the ride-on lawn mower.  It was surprisingly enjoyable!  Next time I plan to bring earbuds so I can listen to music while I mow.  I learned a valuable lesson though: be sure to check the gas gauge.  That's why I had to leave the mower and walk back to the storage container.  Good thing we had extra gas around!  I also saw my first live snake on the Ranch!  He slithered in front of the mower's path trying to get away.  So I got out of that area quickly!

Deer prints!!  I haven't seen any deer yet, but we were very excited to see deer prints around the pond!

The pond is very low right now.  With some good rain, it'll fill up and be nice and blue again.  Eventually we'll dig a well and run a water line to the pond to keep enough water in it for the animals to come.  For now, we need some good boots and gloves to pull some of the dead brush out to clean up the pond a little.  We have to leave some brush in the pond for the frogs!  I didn't see any today though.  

 Still no barbed wire up yet.... coming soon!  

Chris and Rhonda

25th ANNIVERSARY

To celebrate our 25th Anniversary, we wanted to do something really special.  Just last month, we took an awesome family vacation to Disneyland!   That was a wonderful way to celebrate!  But for our anniversary weekend, we decided to do something smaller, but meaningful.  We decided to look forward to the future!  The future at Little Frog Ranch!

We rented the Skid Steer again, with 2 attachments.  The drill will be very helpful with digging some post holes, and the bucket will be very helpful in moving some dirt around the property.

Holy Cow! Rhonda can't believe she's driving this thing!  It was fun!

 Rhonda drove it across the property, but let Chris operate the actual attachments.  

 Piece of cake for Chris!

We were able to get a lot accomplished, and had fun together too!

1993 and 2018

Chris & Rhonda

GATE

Now that the driveway entrance is in, we put the gate up and started the fencing on the left side.

The property line runs between these trees, and in the middle of one of the old craw fish beds (just beyond the trees), making for a challenging time fencing!

I love pink, so Chris used pink string to mark the property line.  Then he installed the t-posts, and now he's working on the barbed wire.  First row down, four more to go.  This will take awhile!

This is the gate for the front entrance. Eventually we'll put in a much nicer electric gate once we build the main house (many years in the future....).

And here is the gate installed.  The wooden posts will be trimmed down soon, but for now, it works just fine!

Look for another update very soon!

Chris & Rhonda